Describe examples of your body utilizing homeostasis in psychological ways?
1 Answer
The sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system.
Explanation:
The sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system, or the fight or flight instinct, evolved as a way of keeping us alive millions of years ago during stressful situations and is a homeostatic system in our bodies.
When we sense danger, the sympathetic system kicks in and our muscles tense up, adrenaline flows, stress hormones kick in, and a whole bunch of body changes start to prepare us for a possible fight for our lives or to run like heck!
When the danger is over, our parasympathetic system kicks in to calm us down, and return our bodies and our mental state to a more normal relaxed state (homeostatis).
However, in our modern world people are constantly stressed out over non -life threatening situations (e.g exams, finding a job) and so our sympathetic system is on constant overdrive and we feel psychological upset for much of our lives. In other words, our fight or flight system is out of homeostatic balance and this can have long-term negative health impacts.
